The present invention relates to agricultural belts used in the harvesting of crops. In particular, the present invention relates to an improved material of construction for combine pick-up belts and swather belts or "canvas".
If the growing season is too short or the crops need to ripen all at the same time, the crops must be cut and windrowed by a swather "belt" or "canvas". A swather belt has regularly spaced cleats or slats for conveying the crops into windrows. A swather belt is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,316,536. After a windrowed crop has ripened, then a combine is brought in with a pick-up attachment that utilizes a combine pick-up belt. The pick-up belt has tines attached to the belt that act like fingers which scoop up the windrow and harvest the crop through the combine.
Rubber coated swather and pick-up belts have been made for years using a composition of styrene butadiene rubber (SBR) which includes ozone and sunlight resistance, but which lacks oil resistance when harvesting crops such as canola and soybeans. Oil levels are particularly high at the point of harvest. The oiliness of the crops in these applications can break down the chemical composition of the SBR compound which in turn shortens the life of the belt.
There currently are oil resistant swather and pick-up belts available made of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) coated fabric instead of rubber coated fabric. PVC may be oil resistant, but it does not perform well in cold weather. PVC swather and pick-up belts have had problems due to cracking and cleat separation from the belt. On the other hand, vulcanized rubber has performed well for years in all types of weather conditions. Therefore, by adding oil resistance, a rubber coated swather belt and pick-up belts would be considered a superior product for use in any type of crop application.